This post was originally published as Launching the New Bedford Port Society website on our sister website seaz.me on March 11, 2009.

Our latest project involved creating a web presence for the New Bedford Port Society, a nonprofit organization located in the New Bedford National Whaling Historical Park which has served mariners and the greater New Bedford community for nearly 180 years.  The original and continued mission of the Port Society is “to bring moral and spiritual improvement to those who work along the waterfront and in the fishing industry.” The Port Society owns and manages two historic properties, The Mariner’s Home and the Seamen’s Bethel, the latter which was made famous as the “Whaleman’s Chapel” in Herman Meville’s classic novel Moby-Dick. In addition to providing services to mariners, the nondenominational Seamen’s Bethel is also the site of many weddings, christenings, funeral and memorial services each year.

The Port Society has never really had any significant web presence and the organization relied on the National Park and several local tourism and business websites to tell its rich history.

For the sake of full disclosure, my cousin Phillip Mello was recently appointed the president of the New Bedford Port Society and he asked me to join. seaz media undertook this pro-bono project as part Sea-Fever Consulting LLC’s corporate social responsibility program.

Let’s take a look at the Port Society’s new website and our thoughts behind it.

Design

Our objectives for this project was to create something quickly that was clean looking and easy to maintain. We decided to use the WordPress blogging platform for its ease of use and installation, and the endless number of themes and plugins that can add functionality and enhance user experience.

1. For the Port Society’s main website, we chose Derek Punsalan’s unique and beautiful Unstandard theme which we felt was in keeping with the aesthetics of the Seamen’s Bethel, the organization’s most prominent property and the only one open to the general public. If you ever visited the Bethel you will be struck by the simple yet beautiful, utilitarian design of this house of worship. We also liked how The Unstandard theme is laid out in a graphic-rich grid system which allows the visitor to take a tour through space and time just by landing on the site’s frontpage.We eliminated commenting functionality since this will be the Port Society’s main static website and they have minimal staff and volunteers to monitor and reply.
2. We added a RSS widget to the footer of the Port Society website that will update news headlines.  The “Port Society News” section is actually a traditional blog using Derek Powazek’s minimalist DePo Skinny WordPress theme which can be accessed via the navigation “News” tab at the top of the Port Society’s website’s frontpage or by clicking on any of the headlines in the footer.
3. Video can really enhance the user experience in visiting a website and since several significant chapters of Melville’s Moby-Dick take place within the “Whaleman’s Chapel”, we thought it would be fun to embed Orson Wells classic portrayal of Father Mapples, a character in the image of the Bethel’s own Reverend Mudge. We found this video on Youtube but unfortunately there is a sync issue with it so we will be working on finding a replacement.  We used the free and full featured video hosting service Blip.tv for the video embed.
4. The Seamen’s Bethel is an active church with lots of public and private events taking place throughout the year so we created and embedded a Google calendar in order to let the public know the upcoming schedule.
5. New Bedford is the home to a very diverse community and the Port Society’s rich maritime history represents sailors from around the world. Therefore, using Nothing2Hide.net’s great Global Translator plugin, the Port Society’s website and blog can be read in thirty different languages.

Photography

Photography plays an important part in telling the Port Society’s story and we will continue to add it to the website and blog. Much of the vintage photography was generously donated by the neighboring New Bedford Whaling Museum while most of the contemporary images were provided by Phil Mello, the current Port Society president. The calendar photo on the frontpage was donated by professional mariner “Tim the Sailor” Ruttledge and we shot several photographs for the project as well.

Things Still To Do

While we wanted to launched the Port Society website, like every project of this nature there’s still a number of things to do including adding content to the Services and Events page, filling out the calendar and creating a photo gallery. Most importantly, over the next few weeks we will be working on a “Support” page since the Port Society is a nonprofit organization that relies for the most part on individuals and organizations that believe in and want to support the organization’s important mission.

We’d love your feedback on this project. Likes and dislikes, things missing, etc. Thanks.